Blessed are the Tutorialists

For they know precisely what they do

Mario Valento

You’ve tried everything. The issue vexes you as nothing has before. Should you just give up?

You used to like doing this. You threw yourself into it while you were young, forgot about it during your turbulent teens, picked it up again in college. It’s soothing. Or have you deluded yourself of that?

Someone—a parent, roommate, friend—notices you seething, leaned over the issue like a surgeon over their anesthetized patient. This someone, unfamiliar with the nuances of what you’re doing, offers well-meaning but ultimately useless advice. Thanks.

For hours you’ve rifled through ancient internet forums and exhumed busy Reddit threads. They’re filled with hapless, helpless commenters who share your issue. Not one knows what to do. You want to thrash around and break something. You know you shouldn’t get this angry, but when something you love is this fickle, you can’t help but feel like an erupting volcano. How do people ever figure anything out?

Then, an idea surfaces. You sit up straighter — new hope deserves better than a slouch. YouTube. How could you have forgotten? With how much time you waste on the site, you’d think you’d have thought of it before. So you search for a how-to, click the third result (skipping over irrelevant ads), and wait.

 A window in the sky opens and through it streams a warm, sweet light. You’ve been saved: by a grandmother filming on her iPhone 6, by a surly man with a “Bad to the Bone” intro, by a teen with a yellow halo around his cursor and an “Unregistered HyperCam 2” watermark atop his screen like the war banner of just-in-time cavalry reinforcements. Whoever it is, they’re a sage. The issue is resolved. You go back to loving whatever you’re doing. Life is good. 

Blessed are the tutorialists, for they know precisely what they do.